Pages

Monday, September 26, 2011

Today is reveal day for the Secret Recipe Club! The Secret Recipe Club was the brainchild of Amanda at Amanda's Cookin'. Early in the month, each participant is assigned a blog from those wishing to play along. Bloggers search through the assigned blog and find a recipe to prepare. On reveal day everybody posts the dish that was prepared and reveals their "secret blogging friend"!

I was privileged to be assigned Kim's wonderful blog, Liv Life. This is a lady who lives life to the fullest through her family, cooking, photography, and travel! She says that the inspiration for her blog came from her daughter, Liv, who finds joy in everything that she does. It was not an easy task to narrow down which recipe I wanted to prepare, but I did it.

After reading the post that Kim is most proud of...well, I just had to make the Blueberry Lemon Pound Cake. I mean if the page in the cookbook is described as "well worn and somewhat splattered" and it is a guest post for somebody and the picture makes your mouth water....you know it has got to be good!

Kim's cake was a hit at our house. Not only was it beautiful and delicious, but Mr. T raved about the flavor!

Sadly, my cake wasn't beautiful. Today was the day that the cake would not release from the bundt pan. (I promise that I am very close to dumping the bundt pan!) I did gently try to put it back together again....but it is just not the same as a cake that releases nicely and does not look like it lived through an earthquake.

Fold in blueberry mixture. Pour cake batter into a 10-inch tube pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. (Check the cake after one hour.)

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Our gourmet group met recently. It is always fun to get together with this group; we have been enjoying good food together for about 27 years. I had a great deal of crab in the refrigerator and I remembered seeing a layered salad with crab so I asked if I could bring a salad.

The salad of choice is a tower of avocado, mango and crab! It is easy to do and oh so tasty!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

One of the things we like to do most when we go to Oregon is go crabbing. It is so much fun. It is like opening a surprise package every fifteen minutes! When you crab you need some very important equipment: a chair, a book, a camera, snacks or lunch, a license, a net and bait, a rope, a crab gauge, and a bucket!

Crab nets come in all shapes and sizes. We use the crab rings. They have lasted a long time. I believe we bought them in the 80's when we first took the girls to Oregon. They are well-used!

The bait goes in a container that is secured in the center of the bottom ring. Sea lions like to visit so it must be snug! Ropes are attached to the net and it is tossed off the pier or off of the dock.

While you wait, you have important things to do. You can look at the scenery.

You can play with your camera.

You can take pictures of sea gulls who want to steal bait....or somebody's lunch. On this day, after the sea gull stole somebody's bait...he came back and took his lunch! It isn't a good idea to leave your things unattended.

After fifteen minutes you can pull up the net to see if you have any crabs.

When the net is on the dock, you check the crabs for size and their sex. In Oregon you are only allowed to keep male crabs and they must measure a minimum of 5 3/4 inches across the back, in front of at the last points. I have labeled two crabs in the net below so you can see how to tell males from females. It is the shape on their abdomen. Males have a triangular shaped abdomen and females a broader shaped one.

Any crabs that are not keepers are returned to the water unharmed. The nets are tossed back in and we continue reading, watching scenery, or chatting with fellow crabbers.

Crabbing was excellent this year! We didn't always pull up nets full of crabs, but when it happened, everybody is excited.

Dungeness crab is so sweet! It makes our hard work crabbing worth every minute!!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

We met with friends for dinner last week. One of the ladies brought a Roasted Banana Pudding that was easy and really delicious! I would make this again. She said that she got it from the August issue of Cooking Light. The difference was that she didn't make it "light". She whipped her own cream instead of using fat free as recommended in the recipe.

I think I should make this one again, this weekend. To repeat myself, it was great!

Place bananas on a jelly-roll pan covered with parchment paper. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes. Remove 3 bananas; cool completely. Peel and cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Bake the remaining 2 bananas at 350° for an additional 20 minutes. Carefully peel and place the 2 bananas in a small bowl, and mash with a fork until smooth.

Combine milk and 1/3 cup sugar in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a simmer (do not boil).

Saturday, September 10, 2011

We are back from vacation! We had fun picking berries, fishing and crabbing. The fishing wasn't very good, we just got one or two. The berry-picking was wonderful and it was a spectacular year for crabbing.

We picked both blackberries and blueberries.

Before we left for vacation my youngest daughter shared a recipe for cobbler with me that she said was better than the "old stand-by". She was right. We took berries with us to Seattle to visit our oldest daughter. We made the cobbler for a BBQ that they were having. The cobbler was absolutely delicious. I used a combination of blackberries, blueberries and raspberries. (The raspberries came from the Farmer's Market in Southwest Seattle.)

Mix the ingredients for the crust. Add 2-3 tablespoons of milk to moisten.

Melt the butter in a measuring cup. Mix the berries, flour and sugar together. Add about 2/3 cup to the filling.

Pour the berry filling into the baking dish. Put the crust in dollops over the top of the berries and smooth out. Pour the remaining butter over the top of the crust. Sprinkle with cinnamon and raw sugar.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Earlier in the week I promised that I would share the chocolate balls that I made from Ewa's blog, Delishhh. These had an instant appeal when I saw them: no baking, no hot oven, everything in the pantry...something sweet to eat! Advance to go!

Ewa suggested rolling the chocolate balls in coconut or pearl sugar. I had not heard of pearl sugar but she provided a link so I ordered some. I learned that pearl sugar is a granulated sugar that is processed into small grains and polished. The sugar won't melt when baked and retains its appearance, I will be having fun playing with it!